When Simplicity meets Extravagance

Day 21:

I love my neighbors.  Over the years, God has been kind to give us neighbors who have became life-long friends.  This weekend, my beloved Illinois neighbors, Heidi and Sarah came for a visit. The kids were super excited to get to host their friend (Sarah's son) for the weekend too!

We're ending week three of Rice & Beans month over here, so food choices have been limited and meals simple.  Oh, but how I longed to present something fabulous and lovely for my friends. You know,  "kill the fatted calf" and declare my overflowing joy and love for them?  Food can be fun like that!  God used Sarah & her beloved to fill us to overflowing with celebratory pizza last year. We were SO blessed.  I deeply wanted to share that same extravagant, food-love with them.

So, I began to ask God how I could bless them within our current means.  Oh! And God is SO kind.  Our friends at Lahash have shared so many good recipes and we came across one that was clearly the "Fatted Calf" of the bunch- Roasted Vegetable Biriyani

This is our amazing roasted vegetable medley packed under a layer of rice, studded with spices and ready to head into the oven.  

Then we made the side garnishes, added some chili sauce and began salivating.

Oh, friends!  This was a truly AMAZING meal...and I'm so blessed to have gotten to share it with my fabulous family and friends!

Compassion

Day 14: The rice & beans devotional "A Common Meal" has been a lifeline of encouragement. This journey is greatly helped by community.

Day 15: Monday is always "Mucho Mexican" over here. Tonight we feasted on pintos & spanish rice with the fix in's.  It felt like comfort food.  A common meal for our family in the midst of an otherwise uncommon month.

Day 16: Half of us agreed to being hungry ALL day.  It's crazy.  We don't normally allow ourselves to get hungry.  Our lifestyle of rich foods & intermittent snacking keeps us satisfied during most of our waking hours.  I've never been so eager to make dinner on time!

Day 17: It's getting HARD to be eating rice & beans every single day... especially while living with abundant opportunities for culinary variety & delight.

It has been affecting each of us in a variety of ways.  Our family Sunshine, JoyAnna, has been playing, "cooking", "serving" & imagining fun food for the past week.  It has been both sweet & sad.

She eats lunch at pre-school three times a week and is utterly grateful for the non-rice & beans meals set before her.  She eats EVERYthing...and comes home telling me about it.  She also asks zillions of questions about "the rice and beans people" and wonders how it is exactly that our friends are helped by her not eating a breakfast burrito every morning. 

She's five. There is so much she doesn't understand. She has to trust that we know what we're doing and that it is good.  She tries not to complain.  This afternoon she said: "I want to be grateful, it's just that I don't really like all the rice and beans that we eat."  

She went to rest time and I prayed for a heart of compassion.  I have compassion for my friends in East Africa, but what of the precious, middle-class princess living under my roof?  God help me.

I pulled out a bowl of leftover rice and mixed and matched recipes until I had rice pudding bubbling on the stove and rice cookies headed into the oven.

When my princess awoke I told her of a God who sings over her- a God who cares for our "rice and beans friends" AND us.  I told her that I think she's courageous and that I'm so proud of her for doing this very hard thing.  I invited her to see the "love cookies" that I made for her. 

She approved...and her brothers were pretty happy too!

Chips, really?!

Welcome to March! It's officially Rice & Beans Month and we've come to our half-way mark. Here are some of our daily thoughts...

Day 9: Josiah (7): "Mmmmm! It smells good in here! I like the smell of Rice & Beans month!"

Day 10: We ate Dan's Ginger & Zucchini Bean Sauce. It's sooo good. I call leftovers!  I'm surprised by my delight over this simple meal.  It's really very good.  Why don't I choose this as my birthday or other celebratory meal? I really like it.  Where do I get the idea that fancy, expensive food is better?

Day 11: We went into the store & there was a table of samples set up.  Did you know that they make Rice & Bean chips?  No, seriously, they're CHIPS!  This is fabulous!

Even more super fun was finding them on sale later in the week.

 Okay, so it's like keeping the letter of the law eating these things.  Not simple, inexpensive or terribly healthy.  But can I tell you that they made me want to sing?  God's love for me is tender and extravagant.  He knows that I'd get giddy over seeing these and over-the-top-delighted getting to see them AGAIN at a reasonably indulgent price.  Daniel is my partner in chip delight.  We were SOOO happy over these things!

Day 12: We made hummus today. 12 days in and our first batch of bean dip of any variety. Wow! We've been missing out!

Day 13:  Preparing for a weekend marriage retreat and making six meals of rice & beans.  Rice pudding, baked rice & raisins, lentil & rice burritos, black beans & rice, hummus, & baked brown rice.  The rice & beans month devotional "A Common Meal" has some surprisingly fabulous recipes in the back pages.  This was our baked brown rice and it was super yummy with a side of hummus.